While 30 of his 787-trained colleagues will go back to flying other Air Indiaaircraft, Capt Anjum Chabra won’t

Aditya Anand, Mumbai Mirror , March 7, 2013

Posted On Thursday, March 07, 2013 at 09:41:04 AM

Air India pilot who uploaded a rap video of himself on YouTube will remain suspended while 30 of his colleagues, who were also trained to fly the airline’s now-grounded Dreamliner fleet, will go back to flying other aircraft after a gap of almost two months.

Air India has said that the 30 pilots can go back to flying other aircraft, such as the Airbus 320 and 321, and Boeing 777, which they flew before the Dreamliners was inducted. However, Captain Anjum Chabra, who uploaded the rap video in which he criticised the airline and its staff, is not among them.

“Chabra does not figure among these pilots. He has not been given any flights right now, though a suspension is technically not punishment,” said a senior pilot from the Indian Commercial Pilots Association.

Chabra, a first officer with Air India’s now-grounded Dreamliner fleet, was served a gag order and warned that he could be suspended during a meeting with Rohit Nandan, Air India‘s chairman and managing director, last week.

“We have asked the general manager of the north region to look into the matter and take action if needed,” Nandan told Mumbai Mirror yesterday.

Late last week, Chabra responded to the airline’s show cause notice over his rap video with an apology. “I did not mean to insult anyone or demean the company. I did it as a hobby without any wrong intention,” Chabra’s letter to Nandan reads.

Now, his colleagues are keenly waiting April, when it will become clear if the airline will pay Chabra his protected 72-hour allowance. “Under an agreement between ICPA and the airline, even if a pilot does not fly, he will be given 72 hours worth of flying allowance ($100 an hour). It remains to be seen if Chabra will get his dues,” asenior pilot said.

While Chabra refused to speak about the latest developments, pilots in the know said that he had writen to YouTube to withdraw the video, but without success. The video has received close to 17 lakh views so far.

On February 13, Chabra posted a five-minute rap video on YouTube, criticising the management for not giving him alternative flights and delaying his salary. He also took a dig at the pilots’ union.

On a counter-complaint by K.V. Jaganathrao and his AI colleague held in May after a plaint by Karnik

The cyber police station at the Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC) on Friday registered a first information report (FIR) under Section 66A of the Information Technology (IT) Act against Sagar Karnik of the Air India Cabin Crew Association (AICCA). This was done on a counter complaint on July 3 by K.V. Jaganathrao, who, along with his Air India colleague, was arrested in May after a complaint filed by Mr. Karnik for posting provocative messages on social networking websites.

While Mr. Jaganathrao and Mayank Sharma were arrested on Mr. Karnik’s complaint in May and jailed for 12 days, no action was taken after the counter-complaint was filed in July with the cyber police station against Mr. Karnik. The FIR filed on Friday Mr. Karnik had posted derogatory comments on Facebook and Orkut, which were defamatory and insulting to the complainant.

Intra-union rivalry

Mr. Jaganatharao’s statement recorded at the cyber police station in connection with his complaint refers to intra-union rivalry between Kiran Pawaskar, former Shiv Sainik and present Nationalist Congress Party MLC, who wanted to control the AICCA, and himself and Mr. Sharma. The statement says that after differences over the elections to the AICCA, from March 2011 to June 2012, Mr. Karnik abused Mr. Jaganathrao many times on Facebook.

On November 1, 2011, Mr. Karnik said he had a gun and also said he would get Mr. Jaganathrao arrested by the cyber police station. There were other abusive words and comments on Facebook as well as an open threat to kill him, Mr. Jaganathrao said. However, Mr. Karnik, after issuing this threat, went and complained to the cyber police station in Bandra that he was being threatened by Mr. Jaganathrao, leading to the two arrests.

Mr. Jaganathrao told The Hindu that after they were released on bail, he submitted a complaint along with a dossier of web links to social networking sites, which show the abuse by Mr. Karnik, to the cyber police station in July. “The police took four months to register an FIR against Karnik, which means they have not investigated the matter properly and if there is an FIR against Karnik, why were we arrested in the first place,” he asked.

‘Lascivious and defamatory’

The first complaint against them was made by Mr. Pawaskar on July 1, 2011 to senior police officer Vishwas Nangre Patil. Later, Mr. Karnik filed an FIR on March 29, 2012 accusing Mr. Jaganathrao and Mr. Sharma of uploading lascivious and defamatory content on Facebook and Orkut against him and politicians and also threatening him with death, apart from insulting the national flag. They were charged under Section 506(2) of the Indian Penal Code and Sections 66 A and 67 of the Information Technology (IT) Act, apart from Section Two of the Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act, 1971.

Meanwhile, Mr. Jaganathrao and Mr. Sharma had met Niket Kaushik, Additional Police Commissioner, in October to raise the issue of their arrest by the cyber police station. Mr. Jaganathrao and Mr. Sharma wrote to him demanding to know if any action was initiated against the police officers who allegedly did not seek the approval of their superiors to make an arrest under Section 66 A of the IT Act.

Ms. Agarwal, a disability rights worker, was carted around on a luggage trolley at Delhi T3

Disability rights activist Anjlee Agarwal of Samarthyam, who was last week “literally thrown off a flight” in Raipur for objecting to the non-availability of an aisle chair, again had a harrowing experience with an airline. This time it was at Delhi’s swanky T3 terminal that Ms. Agarwal found herself being carted around on a luggage trolley with no side support as the Air India staff could not get her an aisle chair.

Narrating her experience, Ms. Agarwal, who was recently part of a major access audit for government buildings in Delhi, said she had to undergo the humiliation of being transported in a luggage trolley on Thursday while returning to Delhi from Mumbai via Air India flight AI 660.

At Mumbai, Ms. Agarwal said she had requested the Air India crew to get her an aisle chair while de-boarding at the T3 airport in New Delhi. However, when the flight reached the Delhi airport, the aisle chair was not there to help her de-board.

Request not met

“I had to wait for 20 minutes and finally, after lot of hue and cry, I got to see a luggage trolley for transferring me from the aircraft seat. I was carried in the luggage trolley chair which had just two wheels instead of four and also did not possess an armrest for side support,” she said.

Lamenting that this was the state of affairs at T3 in Delhi, which is supposed to be a “world class airport”, Ms. Agarwal said she had a harrowing time being hauled around on the luggage trolley. “I was not able to balance myself on the narrow seat, my feet were dangling and I kept asking for another aisle chair to be given to me while being carried to the aircraft gate.”

She said she lost her balance several times, as she has limb girdle muscular dystrophy. Apart from this, she “also felt extremely embarrassed and insulted as 12 to 13 persons [both the crew and ground staff] looked at me with pity!”

Due to such mishandling, Ms. Agarwal said she had to be physically shifted four times at the airport. “I was transferred again from the luggage trolley to another wheelchair at the aircraft gate. Then on reaching the conveyer belt [luggage belt], I got my wheelchair and was transferred onto it. Finally, I was transferred from my wheelchair to the taxi.”

Describing the experience as “very exhausting, disgraceful, scary and unsafe,” the rights activist said it was unfortunate that “still people with disabilities are seen as luggage and are discriminated against”.

Incidentally, this is the third major case of harassment to disabled passengers that has come to light within the past fortnight. Earlier in February, a SpiceJet pilot had forced Jeeja Ghosh, head of advocacy and disability studies at the Indian Institute of Cerebral Palsy at Kolkata off a Goa-bound flight because he was “abnormal” and was not accompanied by help.

In view of such repeated incidents, Ms. Agarwal and Samarthyam have urged the Directorate General of Civil Aviation to come up with recommendations on handling persons with disability and to take immediate action against all airlines that are insulting disabled passengers and violating the policy rules.

Indemnity bond

“We want training of all ground staff, pilot and crew for transferring and handling persons with disabilities,” she said, demanding that people with disabilities should also not be made to sign an indemnity bond as it is discriminatory, since it does not cover people with hidden illnesses.

Among other things, the rights group has also demanded that aisle chairs should be made available in all aircraft for wheelchair users and all persons with disabilities should be allotted front and aisle seats, if requested.